Duet Solitude
by ADoubtfulGuest
Summary: But this is okay, this duet solitude. Tonks/Remus
1. Chapter 1

We stand on the break of morning, leaning slightly towards yesterday but falling quickly towards tomorrow. The temperature is sub-zero and only getting colder, like the way that I feel when I wake, overheated by your closeness.

Let this winter freeze us in place like smiling Polaroids, however fake those smiles may be.

You pull me back inside, like you always pull me back, and smile a smile of sleep and predisposition, like you can read my thoughts in the way that you never read my words. The way you never listen to what I'm actually saying, and I return the favor, because that's what we are.

We are romance, sans sugarcoating.

"Snow is a rather pretty thing, for all the trouble it causes."

You are the epitome of agreeable, but not really, pulling poems out of the air when all they do is make me weak at the knees. How you could ever deal with me when I'm so perpetually weak at the knees, I can't say.

And this is nice, this duet solitude, a place too big for one and too small for two. We sketch our words ad-lib over bare walls, throwing our voices around empty halls so we always feel as though we're next to each other.

We are enviable, perpetually weak at the knees.

Being out of here is being out of mind. Heavy hearts of simultaneous wars drive me out of your mind. Being driven out of your mind drives me out of my mind. So many poems in the air. Remind me to buy a swatter, lest I end up like the old lady who swallowed a fly.

So weak at the knees, perhaps I'll die.

You begin to brew coffee, even though you don't drink coffee, and that at last drags me away from the door where I still stand.

We sing tunelessly because we can't all be stars.

"You don't even drink coffee."

First words of the day, and I'm already looking to argue. Over anything. Ten a.m. and we're already going to clash. Ten a.m. and we're falling quickly towards tomorrow.

"That's why it's for you." You really are terribly agreeable.

Abashed. You win. We didn't even fight, but you win. And when we fight, I win, but you're so damn hard to fight with that I can't help but think that I drew the short straw.

"It's colder in here than it is outside." Who slipped me a dose of obnoxious this morning? I'm on a roll. You don't say anything.

Silent triumph with too many casualties. I step towards you and bury myself in your embrace, disguising my comment as a want for warmth. Because you let me get away with that.

We are the language of silence, advanced note passing.

Because I will have my coffee, and wake up fully, and maybe be a little more agreeable myself, though probably not. We'll get on with things, or rather nothing, falling a bit less rapidly towards tomorrow and looking a bit less frequently over our shoulders at yesterday.

It's routine. The social contract of duet solitude. We give up certain things (pride?) to deal with being in love.

But it's alright, I think. The right balance. We're just out of our own minds enough to be in each others'.

Love is a rather pretty thing, for all the trouble it causes.

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Nothing here belongs to me :] Review?

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	2. Chapter 2

_"We are terrible for each other, and, yes, we are a disaster. But tell me your heart doesn't race for a hurricane or a burning building. I'd rather die terrified than live forever."_ -A Softer World, E. Horne and J. Comeau

Let us first admit that we watch the fire to see it burn, not to try to help. We do not distance ourselves from the things that we wish to help, no matter what you say. We do not back away from a burning building if we intend on saving the people trapped inside.

We are all gods to each other, ghostly pale in the early morning light, humming songs that we don't remember the words too. We are sick of houses without windows, and sick of safe choices, and sick of running out of words to say to everyone else.

The road to hell is paved with absolutely nothing. It is steep and constantly under construction and the best thing to be said about it is that I expect it to be short.

Probably, there's going to be some turbulence.

Probably, you should buckle your seatbelt.

We are wasting borrowed time and we know it, biting our lips and sleeping too late and enjoying the silence. We want to know what it's like to live forever, but we want to know what it's like to die in someone's arms.

I don't think that we can have it both ways.

But we can stay in limbo, if you'd like to call this limbo, this place in between where we want to be and where we can't be. We pity the people who convince themselves that they are perfectly happy, because at least we can admit that we are not.

Because, really, all we want is to be able to fly without fear of death upon landing. We want to be brave enough to stand close to the burning building, if only to feel its warmth radiating like that of our own skin.

Even if we have no intention of saving the people inside.

_I will be your burning building if only you say that you will never back away._

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A Softer World . . . oh gosh. Every genius point I earn, 50% of it goes to Joey Comeau and Emily Horne. Go check out their website, please. Please? It's" a softer world . Com" minus spaces.

And if you want to donate to the cause of an artist with a wardrobe obsession, I'd be happy to provide the forwarding address for that _Being in love is totally punk rock_ shirt.

There's really not much more to say, unless you want to know that I need a haircut and the sharp E on my guitar snapped and that having a headache is kind of like repeating a word over and over again, because after a while you either forget what it means or it just becomes a part of you like anything else.

The sharp E is the one that gives me blisters, anyway.


End file.
